Maternity Homes: From Ireland to the US

An excerpt from Clair Wills' memoir, Missing Persons

Dear readers,

We are excited to share an excerpt from award-winning Irish historian Clair Wills’ book, Missing Persons or, My Grandmother’s Secrets, a personal and historical story of Ireland’s enforced sexual morality that caused damage across generations. The memoir delves into Ireland’s sordid history of religious and state-funded homes where unmarried and poor women were sent to deliver their unplanned babies in secret in the 20th century. Recent investigations found these institutions were places of abuse and neglect, where forced adoptions were commonplace and lack of care led to the deaths of hundreds of children.

While the concept of these homes may seem like long past and far away history, there are institutions like this being established across the US today. Just last week, the New York Times published a piece on ‘maternity homes’ in Florida, a network of homes run by Christian, anti-abortion organizations for pregnant women with substance abuse issues or on the verge of homelessness. NPR also reported on this issue last year, describing a maternity home in Idaho that operated like a crisis pregnancy center, persuading women to keep their pregnancies. Both stories reveal these homes operate under strict restrictions, including limiting their communications, movements, and financial decisions, in what some many residents described as dehumanizing. Wills memoir serves as a cautionary tale of enforced sexual morality and regulated reproductive rights — one that we are being increasingly forced to reckon with post-Dobbs America.

xx, Tamar and Jill